The Dogs of War
by Wolf By Night
Summary: Being a Dog of the Military doesn't only take its toll on one's body. Ensemble fic.
1. Roy

His memories of Ishval still haunted him.

He'd never told her so, but she knew. She could see the occasional darkness that would flash in his eyes, and she could see the scars of his actions on his face whenever the civil war was mentioned.

But mostly, she knew because of the dreams.

They didn't happen every night. And sometimes, if times were good, he could go months without them. But they always reared their ugly heads eventually, and even after all these years, she still didn't know how to help him.

Tonight was no different. His body was coated in the cold sweat of fear, his face contorted in pain, and his hands shook as they clutched at the sheets of her bed.

She had learned long ago that waking him was no good, for he would only lie, tell her he was fine, and turn away from her. Watching him dream, as helpless as it made her feel, was less heartbreaking than having him shut her out completely.

Riza clutched the sheet to her chest and propped herself up on one elbow, her eyes never moving from his tortured face. His teeth were clenched, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and she wondered whether this time, he was dreaming about the atrocities he'd seen, or the ones he'd performed. It was always a toss-up, though more often than not, she'd realized, he dreamed about burning flesh.

With the ever steady hand of a sniper, she reached out to wipe the hair from his eyes and the sweat from his brow. It was so strange to see a man who was always unbendable, always unbreakable, become so easily shattered at the cruel and unforgiving hands of the past when he let his guard down to the night.

By day, he was her superior, the fierce and ambitious Colonel with a will that could not be bent. He was the strongest man she knew, and she and the rest of his team trusted them with their lives, for they were in his hands to do with what he pleased.

But by night, he was just Roy, just a man who had been through hell with a woman by his side to witness it all. She was the only one he allowed to see his human side, his weaknesses, and he trusted her with that knowledge because she was the only one who truly understood it. She felt a responsibility to watch over him when he was this vulnerable, because that had always been her job. And so, every time the dreams plagued him, she would lie beside him, watching, stroking his hair, waiting for him to still and fall into peaceful sleep once again.

And tonight was no different.

Riza pressed her lips to his temple, and some of his trembling subsided. It was only a matter of time until the dreams would leave him alone, at least for tonight, and she could curl back up beside him and let herself succumb to sleep once again. Until then, the hawk's eye would watch over him, the same as it always did.


	2. Alex

Nobody took him seriously.

It was a fact Alex had accepted long ago and learned to live with.

He had always been second best – during his childhood, when everything Olivier did was perfect; during the military academy, when he had been much softer than his peers; and now, as an official State Alchemist, where Roy Mustang took the spotlight in all things.

It wasn't that he was jealous. He had never been very competitive, and was happy to hand any glory over to those who were more deserving. Alex had always liked to help others.

He just wished they would realize he could feel every stare of disdain they sent his way.

Military careers were a time-honored Armstrong family tradition. He hadn't really had a choice in the matter, especially not as the only male progeny of the Armstrong family, and even less so after Olivier had joined. Even so, he had joined with the hopes of helping to make the world a better place. He had hoped to help the Ishvalan conflict come to a speedy and peaceful end, and his naïve idealism had him believing his alchemy could assist Amestris in achieving peace.

It didn't take long for that idealism to be tainted by the red stain of reality.

He remembered the day of his shame in sickeningly vivid detail, though he had spent years trying to blur the scents, the sounds, the sights that haunted him at every turn. Every now and then he could still feel the iron sting of blood in his nostrils, and suddenly he would be right back on those dusty battlefields, watching thousands of innocent Ishvalans exterminated at the unforgiving hands of his own comrades.

It had all become too much for him to bear. Perhaps he truly was a soft fool, just as his sister had always told him, but if being unable to watch death with a smile was a character flaw, he was fairly sure he was okay with it.

They had been so frightened. That was the major factor in his decision to create a hole for the Ishvalan women that day. Their blood red eyes had been drowning in pure, carnal fear, as they had huddled up against the stone cage of his making. It only took him a split second to decide, and before he could second-guess himself, he was opening a hole in his own wall to facilitate their escape.

Everything after that was a blur. He still could not quite figure out how it had all happened. All he really remembered now was thinking that their blood was the same color as their eyes, as the Crimson Alchemist had destroyed them without a thought.

It had been the last straw for Alex.

Something in him broke that day. He had been taught all his life that honor and duty were paramount, higher than all other virtues. But how could he stay true to them when every fiber of his being was screaming at him that his honor and his duty and his actions and everything he had been taught were _wrong_?

He didn't know how to make the two worlds connect, no matter how he tried, and even after his superior officer had him sent away, he was not sure he would have been able to do it differently. It had seemed Olivier had been right about him all along.

The full shame of his actions didn't truly hit him until later on, when he had to face his family.

Alex had spent every moment since then trying to reclaim his name, but he felt the looks, and the scorn, and he knew that despite his prowess in alchemy, they all thought he was just a big joke - his sister most of all.

He never spoke of it, though. He had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it. But he hoped he could prove them wrong someday; he hoped he could show them that the Strong Arm Alchemist, though soft, was not a man to be trifled with.


	3. Edward

For some reason, he had thought that if he and Al could just get their bodies back, could just reach that finish line they had strived towards for so long, everything would be okay.

He had hoped the faces of his regrets, his mistakes, and his failings would somehow magically fall away if he succeeded in repairing the damage he had done.

It did not take him long to realize this was not so.

Restoring Alphonse's body, seeing him grown and smiling and feeling, had lifted a tremendous weight from Ed's shoulders. The knowledge that his brother could now achieve a normal life, could travel, could marry, could grow old, was an antidote to the poison that had gripped at his heart for so many years.

But his demons had not gone.

They didn't linger, didn't haunt him as constantly as they once had, and that in itself lifted a great burden from his shoulders. But on the occasions when they reared their ugly faces, they did so with a ferocity that could knock him to his knees.

Because in the end, even with Father defeated and the Homunculi gone, even with Al grown and happy, Nina Tucker's and Maes Hughes' faces still haunted him. He could still see the creature Nina had become as vividly as if she were in front of his eyes; could still hear Hughes' voice taunting him, this time about his mistakes instead of playfully about his mechanic.

In the end, he had still failed.

It was worse when he slept, of course, because that was when they could assault him while his defenses were down. He would wake in a cold sweat, gasping, feeling as though he would drown.

Sometimes he almost wished he could.

Particularly in Creta and Aerugo, where he was left alone with his own thoughts, far away from the comfort of home, of Al's calm optimism, of Winry's soft skin and lively eyes, he would find himself so low that every breath he took was pain. When left alone to his guilt and his mistakes, it became hard for him to focus on anything else. He had planned to research new methods of alchemy, new ways to change the art, to make it less flawed – but when he was alone, he could only see the past, instead of progress and the future.

He had set out to learn about alchemy, and had only ended up learning more about himself, more than he had ever really wanted to know.

From his seat on the steps of what was now the Elric-Rockbell family home, he watched the rhythmic swish of Winry's long blonde ponytail as she pushed two little blonde children on the swing, her lovely face full of laughter and sunlight.

Home had been the salve his wounds had needed all along. It had taken him a painfully long time to realize it, but when he had, she was there waiting for him, just as she'd always been. She was a lightning rod for his self-loathing. When he was with her, everything was brighter, warmer, and all of his guilt seemed lighter and more distant than it had ever been.

He had traveled for so long, and so far, in search of only half-satisfying solutions to his problems and his sorrows.

Only after his travels did he realize his answers had lay with her the whole time.


	4. Solf

Monster.

That was what they all called him – and not even behind his back. They would spit at him, kick at him, and hiss insults through his bars whenever they passed. It seemed the prison guards did not take kindly to murderers of military officials.

It didn't bother him, much. He found it all rather tedious, quite frankly. He comforted himself with the knowledge that they only treated him in such a manner because he was locked up, where he could not touch them. There would come a day when he would be released, and that would be the day they would return to kowtowing at his feet.

They were only cattle, after all. He was content with letting them have their little moment of grandeur.

He had only done what was necessary.

_Power is all the matters, Solf,_ his mother's voice echoed in his head. _Without power, you have nothing._

He could still see her face, weathered by pain and the weakness of her spirit, squinting at him with those cold and bitter eyes. He could still feel the sting of her palm against his face, even after all these years.

She had been a sick and pathetic woman, crippled by her own sex and powerless to help herself or her son, and that lack of power had given her a hard outer shell and a soul as frozen as the Drachman wastes. She had repeated the same phrase to him every day: "Power is all that matters." The old hag had been convinced that she could somehow redeem herself through her son.

Her favorite method of doing so had been to beat weakness out of him, and so Solf had learned the hard way that he could rely on only himself.

He had become an alchemy apprentice because of her. Not only for the power, but to escape. He could still see the twisted pride in her dead blue eyes and could still taste the bitter hatred he'd felt for her on his tongue.

Alchemy came easily to him, but he could never seem to master the art of reconstruction. His forte seemed to lie in the destructive branch of alchemy instead, and he embraced it, though his master did not seem to approve. The old codger kept harping on about how important it was to balance both sides, but Solf never really listened. He was very talented at making things explode, and that was more than enough for him.

The old master gave up on him, but not before Solf reached a level of incredible alchemic power. The military didn't seem to mind his lack of understanding on the reconstructive properties of alchemy either, and Solf passed the State Alchemist exam with flying colors.

When the letter reached him with news that his mother was terribly sick and requesting his presence, he made that explode too.

And finally, he was free.

She had been a weak, pathetic waif, with no hope for her own life except for what she had set upon him, and Solf had no sympathy for her self-destruction. Power was all that mattered, and she had been too weak to take it for herself. Those who must earn their power from others did not deserve to have it at all. This was what he had learned from his mother, and this was what he would teach to any who got in his way.

It was this same lesson that led him to such great heights in Ishval, and when those simpletons put a Philosopher's Stone into his hands, he knew he no longer had any need for the military. They had given him absolute power – what kind of fool would he be to give it back?

He may have been a Dog of the Military, but it would be a cold day in hell before Solf J. Kimblee would sit and roll over on command.

And so he had killed them, and he did not regret a second of his decision. All he needed now was to wait, and eventually, they would need his skills again. These fools who guarded his confinement were only a temporary nuisance, and he would deal with them swiftly and harshly when the time came.

Until then, they could call him a monster all they wished. It meant they were still afraid.


End file.
